The Ministry of Justice has today published a review of pain-inducing restraint which is authorised for use on children as young as 10 during their journeys to and from custodial institutions, and within child prisons. The review, led by the former Chair of the Youth Justice Board, Charlie Taylor, was set up after legal action by Article 39.
Charlie Taylor critiques the inclusion of pain-inducing restraint in the system in place since 2012, which is called MMPR (Minimising and Managing Physical Restraint):
“I believe that this places the use of pain-inducing techniques on a spectrum that makes it an acceptable and normal response rather than what [it] should be, the absolute exception.”
He said this “has contributed to the overuse of these techniques that I so frequently witnessed during this review”.
Charlie Taylor’s report makes 15 recommendations, including that:
- The MMPR restraint training programme “should be amended to remove the use of pain-inducing techniques from its syllabus” (recommendation 7).
- “That pain is not permitted to be used to end long restraints – staff must always try letting go or changing the hold if a restraint is going on too long”. The report recommends that there may, however, be emergency situations where the infliction of pain can be justified to prevent serious harm (recommendation 10).
- “The inverted wrist should only be used to gain control of strong and / or fully-grown children when there is no alternative and there is a risk of serious harm. Staff must move to a lower level hold as soon as possible” (recommendation 12).
- That staff be permitted to use a pain-inducing technique to prevent serious physical harm to either children or adults (recommendation 9).
- Escort staff should no longer be able to use pain on children. However, Charlie Taylor recommends that there may be exceptional circumstances – when a member of staff is acting in self-defence and in an emergency – where pain may be justified (recommendation 14).
Taylor further recommends that restraint should not be permitted for ‘good order and discipline’ during children’s journeys to and from institutions – which was also part of Article 39’s legal challenge against the Ministry of Justice.
Carolyne Willow, Article 39’s Director, said:
“This is a major milestone in child protection, one we have waited 16 years for since a young boy, Adam Rickwood, wrote a note questioning the legitimacy of pain-inducing restraint before he hanged himself in a Serco-run child prison. Adam was just 14 years-old. An officer inflicted a karate-like chop to his nose, using what was then an official restraint technique – the so-called ‘nose distraction’. He knew what was done to him was wrong, and asked the officers restraining him what gave them the right to hit a child in the nose. It has taken our legal action to finally bring some promise of justice for Adam and other children who have suffered needlessly over many years.
“We need to see the detail of the legal protections which will be put in place to ensure pain-inducing restraint is genuinely prohibited, and that any emergency, self-defence use of pain complies with common law and the UK’s children’s human rights obligations.
“There have been many in senior positions over the years who have sought to justify the inclusion of pain-inducing restraint in the MMPR system, and the programme that preceded it. I hope they will take this opportunity to reflect on why it has taken so long for detained children to be given, at least on paper, the same protection from these brutal techniques as their peers in health and social care settings.”
The Ministry of Justice has accepted all 15 recommendations.
Background
In October 2018, following a successful crowd-funding appeal, Article 39 issued judicial review proceedings to challenge the Ministry of Justice’s policy of permitting the infliction of pain and unjustified restraint during children’s journeys to and from secure children’s homes. Children can be detained in these locked children’s homes from the age of 10.
Staff within the secure children’s homes are banned from using pain-inducing restraint. This form of restraint is similarly prohibited in other health and social care establishments.
As a result of our legal action, the government appointed Charlie Taylor, who was then Chair of the Youth Justice Board, to review the authorisation and use of pain-inducing restraint in child prisons (young offender institutions and secure training centres) and during detained children’s journeys to and from institutions. The High Court stayed our application for judicial review in January 2019, pending the outcome of Charlie Taylor’s review and an inquiry by Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights.
Meanwhile, on 28 February 2019, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), recommended:
“The Chair and Panel consider that the use of pain compliance techniques should be seen as a form of child abuse, and that it is likely to contribute to a culture of violence, which may increase the risk of child sexual abuse. The Chair and Panel recommend that the Ministry of Justice prohibits the use of pain compliance techniques by withdrawing all policy permitting its use, and setting out that this practice is prohibited by way of regulation.”
In April 2019, the Joint Committee on Human Rights repeated its call for pain-inducing restraint in child prisons to be banned. A letter from the Chair of the Committee clarified that its recommendation included children’s journeys to and from establishments.
Charlie Taylor’s report was completed and submitted to Ministers last July.
At the end of April 2020, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture repeated its 2009 recommendation “that the application of pain-inducing techniques on juveniles should be abolished in law and practice”. The United Nations Committee on Torture recommended in 2013 that the the UK “ban the use of any technique designed to inflict pain on children”.
“What gives them the right to hit a child in the nose?” – Adam Rickwood, aged 14 years
The devastating effects of pain-inducing restraint on children came to the public’s attention in 2004, when 14 year-old Adam Rickwood hanged himself in a child prison run by Serco. Adam had been unlawfully restrained and inflicted with the ‘nose distraction’ technique, which caused his nose to bleed for around an hour. Officers ignored his pleas to be taken to hospital. Before taking his own life, Adam wrote a note for his solicitor explaining that he had asked officers what gave them the right to hit a child in the nose. The technique was later withdrawn though officers continue to be trained and authorised to use other methods which cause children to suffer psychologically and physically.
Article 39 is represented by Mark Scott, Partner at Bhatt Murphy Solicitors, and Dan Squires QC and Tamara Jaber from Matrix Chambers.